


Query The Luminous

by jessebee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Dead farts in love, Hey we don't judge, Kiss Meme Request, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Meditation, Old farts in love, Post-Canon, Questioning, Realities Within Realities, Relationships Resolved, Secrets Revealed, Slash, The Force, Wisdom of Elders, Young whippersnappers in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 04:32:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13696926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: Sometimes, in the end, the questions truly are answered.





	Query The Luminous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Copper_Chips](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Copper_Chips/gifts).



Meditation sometimes took Luke to increasingly interesting places now, as if becoming familiar with the main map was allowing him to find the other ways, the side-roads. The “other” places in the other places, and Luke smiled, bittersweetly. Because wasn't that just a description that'd have Han rolling his eyes hard and Chewie eyeing both of them with his own special brand of amused tolerance?

Oh, Han.

The “other” places were feelings as much as they were places, somehow translated into visuals that made sense to the mind's eye. Luke had no real clue yet how much was his own perception and how much was created in the Force by… Something else?

Not that it mattered.

Luke ran his hand lightly over the grass he was sitting on and looked at the garden around him. Because this was a garden, surely. Grass and bushes and trees, and flickers of sound that were surely birds of some sort. Flickers of Force-glow limning the edges because this was the luminous, after all. And just out of sight, the unmistakable sounds of free-running water.

Which of course, always reminded him of Han.

Water and Han had been inextricably linked in Luke's mind ever since his first rainstorm, there on Yavin 4, where Luke had got himself gleefully soaked to the bone and Han hadn't said an unkind word – he'd just leaned against one of the _Falcon's_ struts and shook his head, and smiled.

Luke had been a little bit in love with Han even then.

Luke smiled to himself again now, around the muted ache in his heart, and looked up at what might be sky above him. What to do about Han was the question of this meditation, a question that Luke desperately needed to answer before it caused Han any more hurt, and asking it had led him –

Here, to this beautiful, peaceful “garden.”

He was no expert – half a life spent with underground desert hydroponics not-withstanding – but the place felt guided in a wild sort of way. Or was it wild beneath the guidance?

“A bit of both, actually.”

Or perhaps this “place” wasn't some- _ **thing**_ else, but some- _ **one**_ else.

Luke looked to his right to find the speaker, and stared in wonder.

Even sitting cross-legged on the grass, the man was tall for a Human, dressed in the kind of beige tunics that had been common to the old Jedi Order. Silver glimmered in his long hair and threaded through his short beard and mustache, and his broad face was lined with unshakable integrity, deep compassion, hints of disobedience, and a wisdom learned the hard way. The feel of his Force-Presence made Luke want to curl up next to him: a tall tree by a deep, still pool, firmly rooted and utterly serene.

“A garden tended over centuries,” the man continued, in a voice like warm velvet. “Not even the oldest had witnessed its first seeds planted. A space of water and life, full of the Living Force.”

A whirr of wings and a bird landed on one of the man's broad, upraised hands. The red plumage was so intense a color that the little creature seemed to sparkle: a living jewel, edged faintly in light. It warbled and trilled a greeting, and the Jedi – because he obviously was – inclined his head as if he'd understood every note.

“This is your garden, then?” Luke asked. The bird cocked its head at him, examining him with one bright eye.

The Jedi smiled without smiling. “It belonged to all but I spent many hours here over my life-time, as I was able to. It was my favorite of the gardens, as it was for many of us.”

“Thank you for showing me this, for having me here,” Luke said, because he was polite, and because this was wonderful and not a little bit amazing, and its peace was easing his heart. “I'm honored.”

The man looked directly at him, and a spark like mischief glinted in the bluest eyes Luke had ever seen. “How much of this is you, young Luke? Your own imagination?” he asked, one eyebrow rising. “The Force is infinite, after all, and you have had the best of teachers.”

Luke had to smile. “My imagination is not _this_ good,” he said, shaking his head, and the other man actually chuckled, the sound rumbling warmly around them. The bird took off with an indignant chirp.

“Will you never grow out of teasing students, Master?” a new voice asked, and Luke blinked, because that was –

“What fun would that be, Padawan?” Luke's companion returned. “And I am teaching, not teasing: you are the last being I should need to tell that to.”

“Hmm-mm,” came the skeptical sound, and the newcomer folded gracefully onto the grass beside them.

A young Human man of perhaps Luke's own age, with coppery hair cut short and standing up in a spiky fluff around his head, save for a fine braid that fell from behind his right ear to half-way down his chest. Compact and fit, he wore tunics of the same style as the older Jedi's, but cream-colored and much less rumpled. His face was smooth, the only line that of a deep cleft in his chin, but Luke knew him immediately. There was no mistaking that Presence in the Force – like a sheltering, never-failing warmth and the flash of sunlight off a steel sword-blade.

“Hello, Ben,” Luke said, smiling again. “I like the – ” He motioned at the braid.

Ben's – Obi-Wan Kenobi's – eyebrows rose. He glanced down at himself and then turned a look on the other Jedi that felt like equal parts fondness and exasperation. “Qui-Gon, really.”

The man – Qui-Gon – was unruffled. “This is young Luke's reality, Obi-Wan; it merely shapes in the ways most familiar.”

Ben huffed at that, and shook his head. The Light overtook his form for a moment, and when it receded Luke was looking at an older man, perhaps forty or so Standard if he had to guess. The cleft chin had vanished beneath the beard Luke remembered although it was copper now, and Ben's hair was a medium length, well-cut around his face. His outer clothing was still cream-colored but his undertunic was now a rich brown, tucked up close around his neck.

Altogether, an appearance Luke recognized from holos and files and even a flatpic or two, that he'd seen after he'd joined the Alliance. “General Kenobi.”

Ben's mouth twitched. “Among my least-favorite of the titles I was – gifted with, although it was certainly more polite than some.”

His voice was wry and less rough than Luke remembered, the urbane, elegant tones no longer graveled by decades of Tatooine dust, and Luke was fascinated. By everything. So amazing to be sitting here, in some simulacrum of the old Jedi Order itself and talking to his teacher in the Force as though it was nothing more than an easy afternoon's holiday.

If only there was some way to show this, share this, even a fraction of something like this, with Han…

Luke shook himself. “So what was your favorite title, then?” he asked, curious.

Ben's gaze went distant and the small smile that curved his mouth beneath the neat mustache was somehow warm, fond, happy, and self-mocking, all at once. He bent a not-quite-glance at the other Jedi. “Padawan.”

Qui-Gon didn't say anything, but the space around them – which was the Force itself – flooded with such warmth, such an all-encompassing love, that it nearly took Luke's breath away. Who was this man? And who had he been to Ben?

The answer slapped him a half-second later.

Of course. Qui-Gon _**Jinn**_.

Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn – the man whom Leia said had actually been Obi-Wan Kenobi's teacher rather than Yoda, according to her father Bail Organa, and who had been killed long before the fall of the Old Republic.

“You're Qui-Gon Jinn,” Luke said, delight and awe escaping and welling up and tingling, spilling over. “I am deeply honored to meet you, Master Jinn.”

Ben did look at Qui-Gon this time, full-on. “Not only teasing but playing mysterious?”

Qui-Gon smiled, and it was like the sun coming out. “I had every faith in his perceptions, Obi-Wan. As I said, he has had the very best of teachers. And he is Anakin's son.”

 _Anakin_.

Delight turned sharp-edged, and Luke swallowed. “You knew my father? In life?”

Qui-Gon studied him with blue eyes that saw everything. “It was I who first brought him to the Temple.”

“Master Jinn, I have – many questions.”

Qui-Gon's expression sobered, and softened into something terribly, painfully kind. “Less than you think, and more answers than you know. And – very little of Anakin Skywalker's story is mine to tell.”

Obi-Wan shifted. Qui-Gon didn't look at him, but awareness swirled between them just the same, nearly tangible.

“Nor are those the questions and answers you came here, and now, to seek,” Qui-Gon added.

Luke's chin came up. “They aren't, but all knowledge is useful, whether it hurts or not, and things found by accident under the sand are frequently the most valuable in the end.”

Ben actually laughed out loud, and the skin around Qui-Gon's eyes crinkled. “Well-said, young Knight. Well-said indeed.”

 _Knight._ _ **Jedi**_.

“You _**are**_ a Jedi Knight, Luke.” Qui-Gon reached out and laid his big hand on Luke's arm, and the contact tingled like a physical blessing. “Don't ever doubt that. You are the last of the old and perhaps the first of the new. Pass on what you have learned, that the ways of the Force are not lost to this time.”

Luke's breath felt shaky. Hells, _he_ felt shaky, peace beginning to desert him. “I don't know enough, Master Jinn. I had so little time – how can I presume to teach?”

“You know everything you need to. The rest – the Code was a set of seeking questions that became guidelines and finally law over time, but that time is over. Read them and ponder them if you wish, but what you need to know, you already have within you.” Qui-Gon brushed two fingers against Luke's chest, and something of the Master's _deep-well calm_ wound around Luke's heart. “Here. Trust your feelings.

“As to the question you've not asked – about your friend Han – well. A true, selfless love is rarely a bad thing, as long as it never blinds one to the higher good. And here I will leave you to Obi-Wan's tender mercies, for I sense you have still other questions which he may now be able to answer.”

Qui-Gon rocked easily up onto his knees, and Obi-Wan looked at him. Qui-Gon touched three fingers gently to the underside of the bearded jaw and with no more ado, kissed Obi-Wan on the mouth.

Softly, sweetly; not lingering but utterly without haste. It was beyond any doubt a lover's kiss, and Luke had seen enough in the last few years to know the distinction, even had the feeling around them not been perfectly, perfectly clear.

In the next breath the older Jedi Master was gone, and Obi-Wan was watching Luke with those kind, ageless, gray-blue eyes. “Well?” he asked after a few moments, with a slight smile and tilt of his head. “Do you have your answer?”

Luke grinned back almost helplessly, feeling the Force sparking, glinting, shining with a joy he'd thought he'd given up. Oh, yes. Oh, yes he did have his answer, at last.

“Yes, I do. To that question anyway. But I've got others, you know,” he said, and almost laughed at Obi-Wan's expression of mock annoyance. “Starting with: where, when is this, here?” he asked, smoothing his hand across the grass.

“The Temple on Coruscant in our time, Qui-Gon's and mine,” Ben said. “This was called the 'Room of a Thousand Fountains'…”

 

*

 

Luke came back to the living world and the smells of soil and green things around him, in the little glade he'd retreated to. And to the sounds of Chewie muttering to himself – snatches of favorite Wookie epic poetry, it sounded like – and further away, Han's tuneless humming as he pampered his “lady,” taking advantage of their planetfall here to tweak at things on the _Falcon's_ belly. Luke's best friend was rarely happier than when he was tinkering, but lately even that activity had had threads of unease and worry running through, pinching the weave out of true.

But Han hadn't said a word, not really: had only stuck by Luke and stayed there through the months of Luke's own uncertainty and doubt, accepting the at-gentle-arms-length-only relationship that Luke knew was causing his friend frustration and a deep heart's-ache.

A hell of a reversal, Luke thought and not for the first time, his mouth twisting in gentle irony, when it was “the last Jedi” who couldn't commit and not the “smuggler-scoundrel,” the persona Han had thrown up defiantly to the galaxy for most of his life.

Luke smiled, watching his friend's figure as the man stretched – just – enough to reach a recalcitrant part, molding trousers and the eternal white shirt to that long, lean body.

Well. If Han was still willing, uncertainty would end very soon.

Right now, in fact.

“Hey, you look better,” was Han's greeting when Luke reached him there in the _Falcon's_ shadow. “Good session of navel-gazing, huh?”

Luke nodded. His heart was so full that the peace of it must be spilling from his eyes, and Han's own hazel ones narrowed. “You look like you found somethin', kid. Answers to what you needed, maybe?”

 _Oh, yes._ “Yes,” Luke said, smiling because he couldn't help it. “Han, we need to talk.”

Han's head went back. “You know that ain't been a good phrase _ever_ in the history of the galaxy, right?”

“Then we're going to start a new fashion, you and I.” Luke tilted his head at the _Falcon's_ ramp. “C'mon.”

“Oh, we need privacy for this, do we.” Han's mouth tightened, worry in his emotions.

Luke put a hand on his arm. “I think you're going to want it. I know I am,” he said softly, sliding that hand up Han's arm to his shoulder and cupping his nape.

Worry morphed into surprise. “Luke?”

Sometimes the best answer was not a word. Luke pulled, gentle and inexorable, until Han leaned down close enough and Luke brought their mouths together in a simple kiss.

A frozen moment, Han not even breathing, until Luke released him and Han suddenly inhaled, the sound sharp between them. _“Luke?”_ he whispered, hazel eyes wide with shock, hope trembling there like a baby bird just peeking out of its nest.

Luke nodded again toward the ship's interior, blinking against the sudden sting in his own eyes. “C'mon.”

 *

“So,” Han said lazily, quite a while later, “not that I'm complaining – at all – but what brought this on, finally?”

Luke idly traced gentle circles in the small of Han's back. Even to his prosthetic fingers, Han's skin was so soft… “I got my answer.”

“Answer. To that whole 'Jedi not having lovers and families' thing.”

“Hmm.”

“So… you decided in that meditation, huh?” A gentle kiss was pressed to Luke's chin, and the tip of his nose, and one to each of his closed eyes. “Like I said, so very much _not complaining_ – but. What made that session different?”

Luke opened his eyes and gazed up into Han's questioning ones, his heart so full of this amazing man and this now-peaceful love that it might burst. “I didn't decide, exactly,” he said, delighting in the myriad flecks of color he could see in the gray-hazel, this close in. “I – got my answer.”

Han's mouth curled in his familiar, gently mocking half-twist. “What, from the 'glowy ghosts of Jedi Masters past,' or somethin'?”

“Or something,” Luke agreed, grinning, before he sobered.

He ran his other fingers, the flesh ones, across the hard lines of Han's collarbones and into the fragile hollow they guarded. Felt Han's pulse, Han's life, against his fingertips. “I'm sorry that it took so long, and more that it caused you pain. This is – I had to be _sure_ , Han.”

“That's okay,” Han said, and kissed him lightly on the mouth. And it was okay, Luke felt it – the heart's-ache had vanished like mist on Tatooine. “You're sure now.”

 

*

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Another story for the tumblr kiss meme. The request was: #5, comfortable kisses, and the anon wrote:  
>    
>  _so hum i don't want to seem greedy but i saw the kiss meme and i was eyeing #5 and trying to decide between asking for quiobi or skysolo, and actually i've hardly read anything with both pairings (lots of skysolo and obikin usually, not so much quiobi) and what would be your take if you were trying to include both pairings? skysolo with force ghosts!quiobi? everyone lives au? complete au? I'm curious :-)_  
>     
> May this satisfy your curiosity, anon. Thanks for the request :-)
> 
> (big thanks as usual to sanerontheinside for aiding, abetting, egging-on and just generally being wonderful)


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